


Unwanted Memories

by arochill



Series: Linked Universe Fics [3]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, False Memories, Hurt, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Memories, Wild (Linked Universe) Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21592096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arochill/pseuds/arochill
Summary: It was fine. Wild was used to not remembering his past.It wasn’t fine. These weren’t his memories.
Relationships: Four & Hyrule & Legend & Sky & Time & Twilight & Warriors & Wild & Wind (Linked Universe)
Series: Linked Universe Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555819
Comments: 15
Kudos: 332
Collections: The Bard's Roost





	Unwanted Memories

His memories came back when he slept, and disappeared when he woke. It was an endless cycle of remembering and forgetting and Wild could do no more than allow it to throw him back and forth every night. It hurt that he could do nothing but allow it to happen but now he wasn’t alone when he woke up feeling like there was a whole in his chest and a deep pain that had been there for years. Now he had people at his side when he didn’t know who he was. Now he had people that would wake him up in the middle of the night when he was stuck in a horrible memory that he could never remember.

He wasn’t  _ used  _ to remembering anything, and that was slowly turning into something that he was used to, whether for better or for worse. It had been just over two years since he woke up with  _ nothing.  _ The memories he had gained back through the photos of the Sheikah Slate were some of the only things he could call his own.

Until today.

He went to sleep prepared for another night of nightmares of his adventures or memories he would never wake up with. Twilight was close by, lying to the side of him with a book in one hand and the other hand close to the sword that was sitting on his left side. It was comforting and despite everything Wild fell asleep in only a few minutes.

And fell into a memory.

_ There was a hand brushing across his hair. _

It was a small hand, but it felt incredibly familiar and he didn’t try and move it away. All he did was relax into it, letting it happen. She thought he was asleep and he did nothing to contradict that.

He couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he told her that he knew she did this every night to calm herself down. He wondered if he would see that bright red blush fall upon her cheeks, if she would push him away with a huff and not talk to him for the rest of the afternoon and apologise not with words but with a quiet huff and letting him choose what he wanted to do the next day. He wondered if she would own up to it or lie, he wondered if she would understand him telling her that he enjoyed it just as much as she did.

It was a quiet night.

_ Midna was as comforting a presence as she always was. _

Wild’s eyes didn’t snap open. He awoke slowly. It was strange in the fact that he never woke up slowly. He could feel eyes on him without looking in that direction, and he sighed.

“Are you… okay, Wild?” He heard, and he lifted up a hand and felt the wetness beneath his eyes and frowned.

He looked over at Twilight and felt like crying even more. He didn’t. He just stood up, walked over to the older man, and pulled him into a hug. He said nothing.

Later, he would have no idea why he did so.

Later, he would go to sleep again.

And the very same thing happened again.

_ There was a soft singing, and he felt himself smile. _

She was so comforting to the horse, stroking its neck as she hummed her families song to it. She didn’t know he was there yet but he felt content to just listen to the song until she noticed him. She was as beautiful as always, hair let down and smile on her face that lit up the entire world around them effortlessly.

In that moment he knew he loved her.

She turned around in the same moment, and that smile only grew brighter upon seeing him.

_ “Fairy boy!” _

He woke up with a smile that, despite being his own, didn’t fit on his face. Time was leaning against a tree, gently running a finger against the ring on his hand. Wild didn’t speak, but the smile on Time’s face matched his own and it fit  _ much  _ better.

_ “You’ll wake me up, won’t you?” _

He could feel the tears falling, his hand rested against hers but still so very far away.

“Of course I will.” He promised. He watched her smile, ever trusting in him and his words.

And then her eyes closed and he was sealed off from her completely.

_ He turned, hand on the Master Sword and anger thrumming through his veins, “let’s go, Fi.” _

Sky was so happy. Wild could see it in everything he did that he had no real regrets. But the anger still ran through Wild’s body, and he didn’t know what to do.

_ “Aryll!!” _

She was screaming. She was terrified, calling out his name over and over as she was pulled further and further away from him. He could do nothing more than watch as she cried out, begging her brother to save her from the monstrous bird that had taken hold of her. 

He felt nothing less than terror as his sister was taken away from him. He was useless, unable to save her no matter how much he wished to, and it wasn’t long before she disappeared out of sight completely.

_ He collapsed to the ground, sobbing. _

Wind was laughing, chasing after a rabbit that had managed to escape the snare. Wild would usually go after him and help him out but all he could think was,  _ ‘Did I have a sister?’ _

_ He felt divided, but that made him stronger. _

But this still hurt more than ever before. He was looking down at himself, but not himself. He was looking down at Shadow who had saved  _ all of them,  _ but there was nothing he could do but stare.

_ There were four of them, but none of them could save his life. _

He felt split up, like someone had taken a saw to him and made him into many individual pieces. He felt wrong. He spent the day by the fire, curled up in himself and talking to nobody.

_ “Sing with me?” _

He denied it, but it wasn’t long before he was pulling out his ocarina and joining in on the song. She looked so calm, so  _ free,  _ and he wished he could join her in that feeling.

She wanted to be a seagull, free as could be and one with the wind. He wanted to tell her that she was pretty much there already, and that she didn’t need to be a bird to be free.

But he wouldn’t tell her that.

He should have.

The Dream Fish would continue to put people into a deep rest until he was stopped, and he knew, he  _ knew,  _ that if he accepted that and finished this he would never be able to see her and her absolute freedom again. But there was no time for him to choose, all he could do was take out all of those instruments and set the Dream Fish free.

“Sing to me?” He asked, quietly as he drifted in the ocean.

_ The seagull above him began to sing. _

He saw Legend looking up at the sky, a wistful look on his face that Wild never would have seen if he didn’t feel that exact same desire to look up as well. He knew that if he said anything all that would happen would be Legend yelling at him. He wished he could go over and help him, but there was a part that was screaming at him that he shouldn’t even be knowing that Legend even  _ needed  _ help, because what he needed help with was something he had  _ never  _ shared with anyone. Something that, to the upset of Wild, he felt like he could understand the reason to.

He knew there was something wrong. The memories that were stuck in his  _ weren’t his.  _ But he could never recall all the details once the day was over, and everytime the day ended he felt like he was losing a part of himself even though those memories never belonged to him in the first place.

It hurt. He knew that if he went to sleep again Warriors or Hyrule would be next.

He saw Legend turn around and glance his way, confused as to why he was looking his way, but Wild turned back to the fire immediately.

That night he didn’t sleep.

It was growing to be a problem. He was staying up night after night, hiding from the memories he knew weren’t his own. He was lying about sleeping, going so far as to lay down further away from his friends and just stare off into the distance until the sun began to rise again. It had nearly been a week and still he remained awake, letting the bags under his eyes grow with every passing second.

He knew the others were getting concerned but he hated the very idea of what he was seeing in his dreams. He didn’t  _ want  _ to invade their privacy. He didn’t  _ want  _ to learn the things that they hadn’t told him, because he  _ knew  _ that if the same thing happened to any of them and they saw his past he likely wouldn’t have been able to handle it. He wanted to respect their privacy and all he could think of to prevent it was to avoid sleeping altogether.

The others decided enough was enough on the fifth day of him remaining awake.

Instead of any of them going to sleep that night, they all stayed up, and they waited by the fire along with him quietly until he finally snapped.

“I’m sorry.” He said, hiding his face in his hands at their expectant looks. A hand rested on his back and he glanced out from between his fingers at Twilight who sat beside him.

“For what, cub? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

Wild shuddered, his eyes closing for only a moment and giving him yet another glimpse of people he knew but didn’t know at  _ all. _

“I have; I’m sorry. I tried to ignore it, I  _ promise _ , but they just keep coming.”

“What do, Wild?” Twilight asked carefully, a hint of concern in his voice.

And Wild looked up, pain and desperation and regret etched into his expression.

“The memories.” He said.

Everyone’s expressions went confused.

“Wild?”

Wild shook his head, and he looked up and at Twilight and only Twilight.

“She pet you to ease her nerves. You didn’t want to tell her that you knew she did it because you enjoyed it too.”

The hand against Wild’s hand froze, stopping in its soft, calming movements. He watched Twilight’s expression go blank, and he felt when the older man removed his hand completely.

“You– Wild, how do you know that?”

Wild ducked his head.

“Time’s wife calls him fairy boy, and she sings to the horses.”

He could almost feel Time’s eyes on him, could almost  _ feel  _ the implication.

“Wild?”

“You woke her up, right, Sky?”

He heard Sky choke. He couldn’t stop.

“I hope your sister is okay now, Wind.”

“Wild, stop.”

“Why are you so divided, Four?”

There were hands shaking his shoulders, trying to stop him, but the memories were flooding back, and they needed to be released in anyway he could make them.

“She’s free now, Legend. Like she always want–”

And there was a slap against his face, a harsh pain that had his head snapping up and staring at the people in front of him. Legend was glaring down at him with pain filled eyes. Wild could see the others behind him, moved even further away from him than usual. He wasn’t sure if they had been there in the first place, but he would guess not. He would have tried to get away too.

“Wild, stop.” Legend demanded, hand still held up as if he was about to go at it again.

Wild was silent. He had nothing more to say, either way. He didn’t want to look to the others and see the way they were looking at him. He didn’t want to see the horror, the disdain, he didn’t want to see the crack he had put between him and the only other people who understood what he had gone through.

There was a hand on his back again. His head snapped to the side.

Twilight hadn’t moved an inch. The blankness Wild had previously seen on his face was removed, and all that remained was a mixture of confusion and concern.

“Wild, what happened?” His mentor asked softly.

Wild breathed in, and out, and the look on his face was terrified and broken.

“It’s not my memories I see in my dreams.” He told them all, unable to look away from Twilight’s face, “It’s all of yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is a weird one. i’m not sure if i want to end it here or continue to a second chapter. i guess we’ll see how inspired i feel about this one.


End file.
